HOUSE TEASE in 5D

The first 2 minutes of the finale episode of U.S TV show House , that I discussed below and was shot entirely on the 5D2 can be seen here. (Thanks Dave!) It looks pretty amazing. The times are definitely a changing.

HEAVY METAL PICNIC!

While digging around for some history on the post below... I have just found another film Heavy Metal Picnic which was shot in 1985 a year prior to Heavy Metal Parking Lot, and was only just uploaded to Vimeo five days ago! 'Picnic' was produced by Jeff Krulic (who then made 'Parking Lot' in 86). Heavy Metal Picnic takes you way deeper. What is essentially a bunch of kids fooling around with a camera, has become an incredible social document. This film makes Heavy Metal Parking Lot look water downed. This roughly assembled edit provides us with an astounding amount of authenticity. truth and access into a very specific time and place. A time and place I myself am totally fascinated with. My feature film Cherry Bomb is drawing heavily from this world, although it's set about 6 years before these guys were listening to metal and getting wasted on some hillside in Maryland, USA.

It looks as though the filmmakers partied filmed as much as they could until the camera batteries went dead.

Heavy Metal Picnicer "Are you guys really from CBS?"

Filmmaker "Nah, we just stole all this shit!"

R.I.P Jim Marshall

Farewell Jim Marshall, the legendary music photojournalist, or perhaps more appropriately 'musician photojournalist'. You may not have heard of Jim, but you would have definitely seen his images.

A few seconds from my New York minute...

Before flying back to Australia, I scheduled a short (7 hour) day trip in New York. I think it really is my favourite city of them all. We arrived at 8am by train bleary eyed with no sleep after wrapping in Philly at 4am. The whole day was a little surreal so I'm glad I took the snaps below so I could prove to myself it wasn't just a jet lagged dream...

I was able to get to a couple of my favourite places as well as stumble across a few new ones. I think thats what I like about NY so much. You can wander off in any direction and find great things just waiting there. It's Disneyland for adults!

Sound Maker pt 2

Have just wrapped the week shoot in Philadelphia. Such an amazing experience. I feel so privileged to have been invited so warmly into the lives of people who live in such a different world to mine. The last 7 days have felt like exploring outer-space.

The textures, places and faces of South Philly have left a lasting impression on me.

Tomorrow a short day in NYC! Then flying home to my family who I've missed alot.

And the edit suite...

Los Angeles Transit

HELP NEEDED!

UPDATE - WE HAVE FOUND THE ARTIST!

‘BURN’ DOCO

)

I am looking to produce a mini-documentary featuring a ‘unique and unconventional, young urban MALE sound maker’ the doco will be featured on a website for a new 'energy drink'. This artist can be located anywhere in the world! They will be paid!

I am looking for someone who is unique in what they do and is passionate about their music and philosophy. They need to be fearlessly energetic and breakthrough, not mainstream. The sound I'm looking for should be personal and unique, but ultimately have its roots in urban music and culture. It would be best if they used vocals / words in some way, and perhaps electronics in their performance.

We had found the perfect artist in DAN DEACON and the film was going ahead, but 'due to circumstances beyond our control', this can no longer happen. Dan was perfect though, his energy is infectious and plays a show like nobody else. Check him out here...

or here

But it doesnt have to be in that style, have a look at BUTTERSCOTCH. She would also be perfect if she was MALE (we are doing another film featuring a female) and we can’t have both films with women...

Another guy who would be perfect, but he was not interested is DUB FX. His has a unique take on a traditional form of urban music, passionate, creative and dynamic. This clip gets better the more you watch it.

As an example of something we liked but went out of the boundaries, was LUCKY DRAGONS although creative and unique, they were too experimental with their sound. Perhaps more in the sphere of performance art. Which is awesome, but not totally right for this project. But they were nearly on brief...

Ultimately what we are looking for is very hard to define and is open to interpretation and yes, subjective.

But if you could break down... Male, age 18-30ish, Solo (Duo maybe), Vocal, Amazing performance, English speaking, anywhere in the world, new talent - undiscovered or just about to break through!

So is there another Dan Deacon, or someone incredible that we haven't seen...!?

We are working to a very tight deadline and are hoping to find suitable artists over the next 2 days! Please forward any suggestions that you think may be suitable and if you have any questions please feel free to contact me directly, or via facebook, or leave a comment below...

THANKS!

True Love and Chaos pt3

A few selects from the Knog stills shoot.

Black and White

I'm slowly falling more and more in love with Black and White images. Whether it be for stills or film. The film Strandon In Canton I briefly discussed in the post below this one, is stunning in all it's monchramatic glory, glitches and all. There is something in the way that when you remove all the colour information from an image it becomes so much more simpler, more direct, and I'm becoming obsessed with it! It's more about form, shape and texture. I know this baisc and obvious, but I'm really enjoying exploring it in my work.

I once read somewhere that films are not shot in black and white anymore because an audience won't feel as though they are getting their moneys worth. Insane.

Below are a couple of pre-production stills for the Knog stills shoot I've been working on. The actual shoot was yesterday and I'll post some images from it in the next day or so... It was great fun and I'm really happy with the way it came together.

Casting

I'm doing a stills shoot for KNOG in a couple of weeks. I've been casting people for the different roles. KNOG has given me a crazy amount of freedom to do things the way I want. I love that level of trust. It's hard to find in commercial work.

Young kids in love and up to no good...

Sketchy Japan

I've been cleaning out my office at home (SO exciting!) and I came across an old journal I made when I first travelled overseas in 1999 to Japan. I'm not sure if it was because it was my first trip O.S or because it was Japan, but the whole experience was incredible. I don't think I blinked for the two weeks I was there, every moment seemed so exhilarating and unique.

One of things that this old journal reminded me of was my approach at the time for documentation. I had some purist notion that it would be cheap or improper in some way to take photos, particularly of tourist destinations. Rather I thought it more appropriate to sit and draw the places I was there to 'see', this way I would remember the textures, the light and the overall 'scene' in far greater detail. It was great to look through all these sketches and it was true, I think I was able to recall in very clear detail alot more about the location than what the sketch provided. Perhaps because I was required to sit and observe for a much greater amount of time than if I was quickly taking a photo and moving on.

(click on the image for a larger view)

Seeing these little drawings made me dig into the collection of shoeboxes under the bed where all our negs and prints have been meticulously filed and organised (not). The majority of photos I did take on that trip, were point and shoot snapshots of random details and observations that jumped out and demanded to be recorded.

Apologies for the crappy scans!

One image that stood out to me while shuffling through the stacks was from a roll I took late one night on a subway platform deep within Shinjinko train station, Japan's and perhaps the worlds (?) busiest train station. I set my old Nikon SLR up on a signal box and every time a train came in to stop, I took a single shot, which was framed by the trains window, capturing the packed commuters lost in their transient thoughts. Man, that was a cool trip...

A Loud Night Out

Just got back home from seeing one of my favorite bands MASTODON live! The played their 2009 album Crack The Skye (my album of the year) in it's entirety, from beginning to end. All killer, no filler! They then had a small break and then walked back on and ripped into a dark and brutal set covering highlights from their back catalogue. One of those all to rare, intensely beautiful live music experiences.

It's kind of left me speechless...

A Quiet Night In

I perhaps over looked the Fever Ray album above as one of my favourite things of 09... I think it will be on high rotation for a long while yet. I totally love this Fever Ray clip for all it's wonder and weirdness, but this or this would be my choice cuts from the album. So good on Vinyl!

Random China (pt2) Kids

How cool is the little girls outfit below. Fashionistas and hipsters all over the world are falling over themselves trying to get the right look and here it is, put together by some awesome 6 year old in a small rural village in South West China.

The group of kids in the 3rd shot, told us, according to our translator, "...had never had their photo taken". We were set up to shoot on the side of this crazily steep mountain range and from out of nowhere I could hear kids giggling. I looked through some bushes and saw this cheeky bunch of kids 'spying' on us. My wife Nat (who is a dancer) managed to coax them out of hiding by playing a little dance game with them. The kids told us they were walking home from the local school which took them 2 hours(!).

It's hard to believe they had never had their photo taken, but their nervousness around the procedure and their shrills of laughter of seeing themselves on the digital screen on the back of the camera afterwards made it evident that it was definitely a rare occurrence.

I'm thinking more and more about that film in China...

(as usual click on the image for a larger view)

Random China (pt1)

Back in Melbourne after two very cool weeks of shooting and travelling across China. The local Chinese production company were amazing to work with and delivered above and beyond what I expected. They worked very hard and have left me with not only great footage for the TVC's, but also provided us with many great experiences and memories.

As I said in a post below Shanghai is an incredible city. It's more Bladerunner than Tokyo, in fact I think it's way more Bladerunner than Bladerunner (except there are no flying cars, yet...). I really fell for it in many ways. So many contradictions, it's a very raw and at times confronting place but also a very cosmopolitan city (It is known as the Paris of the east), with great restaurants and galleries. Ultimately from where I was standing and looking only through travellers eyes, I feel it could be a very liveable city. I would love to spend more time there. Although seeing how quickly it is changing, by the time I get back there, it could be a very different city again.

The shoot also took us high up into the mountains of South-West China into the provence of Yunnan where after two flights and a seven hour mini-bus journey across and through some of the most steep and rocky mountainous passes we found ourselves at our destination, the incredibly lush Lugu Lake.

It would be so great to go back and shoot a film. Perhaps just a short. While I was there, my mind was constantly filled with random images, sequences and scenes from possible stories that could be easily and simply shot there. There is so much life and energy on the streets, it's all there, waiting.